Effects of Taraxacum mongolicum Hand.-Mazz. (dandelion) on growth performance, expression of genes coding for tight junction protein and mucin, microbiota composition and short chain fatty acids in ileum of broiler chickens

Table 4 Effects of dandelion on the alpha-diversity of ileal microbiota of broilers

Items	Treatment group				SEM	P-Value
Items	CON	LD	HD	CTC	SEM	P-Value
21 day
observed_species	277^a	178^ab	136^b	135^b	20.226	0.03
shannon	4.05^a	2.86^b	2.32^b	2.80^b	0.204	0.01
simpson	0.87^a	0.72^b	0.62^b	0.74^ab	0.031	0.02
ace	280.76^a	184.36^ab	142.48^b	145.15^b	19.580	0.03
chao1	279.94^a	180.82^ab	136.95^b	137.36^b	20.244	0.02
42 day
observed_species	432	334	410	571	37.701	0.16
shannon	2.72	3.14	3.52	4.11	0.240	0.22
simpson	0.58^y	0.69^xy	0.80^x	0.85^x	0.041	0.06
ace	483.00	387.50	458.50	624.46	39.969	0.20
chao1	475.80	367.40	458.70	624.81	39.534	0.13

CON The control treatment, LD The low dose of dandelion treatment, HD The high dose of dandelion treatment, CTC The chlortetracycline treatment, SEM Standard error of the mean
^a,bMeans (n = 5) within a row with different letters differed significantly (P < 0.05)
^x,^yMeans (n = 5) in a row with different letters tended to be different (0.05 ≤ P < 0.10)

ISSN: 1746-6148